Chushingura [DVD] [1962] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

The reason for which I can not say that this is the ultimate samurai movie is because Kurosawa made "Seven Samurai". Other than that there is nothing better in samurai movies than "Chushingura". And it is a true story, better known as "The 47 faithful ronin".

Do not expect a show of sword fighting and martial arts - well, there is some, but you have to wait until the end and it is a VERY long movie. The beauty of "Chushingura" is in the story, which is more about going towards the objective rather than achieving it - and considering that the ultimate target is death, no wonder that the heroes go there slowly...

Seeing this movie was a great experience. I count it as one the best movies I ever saw and I will always remember it fondly. But be warned - it is not an easy movie and definitely not an action movie. This is a story about death and dying, so watching it have some respect. Drink tea (or sake) rather than beer. And forget about the popcorn - it doesn't taste so well mixed with tears...

Chushingura (47 Ronin) is a seemingly a film about justice, loyalty and honour but one can clearly see from this film how these noble values are twisted in Samurai culture. The first hour is based around a feudal lord who is attempted to be bribed by a treasury minister but refuses due to his principles. The minister treats him disdainfully, rudely and horribly until finally the feudal lord snaps and slashes him (only wounding the minister). The feudal lord is forced to commit Hara-kiri (ritual suicide) for his act, they do not even give him a chance to explain himself and neither does the lord try to explain himself: he goes willingly to die. The last two hours is about the 47 ronin who wait for the chance to exact revenge and eventually kill the minister in a planned assault on his home and are then forced to commit hara-kiri by the law.

The scene after they kill the minister they carry his head out and people watch and heroic music is played and the scene superficially seems like they have gotten justice and committed some great act. There is vain glory to this scene because the characters are pathetic: The feudal lord, who is killed early on in film, sucks up and behaves like dirt to the minister. The ronin are so obsessed with getting revenge on the minister that they don't even realise the irony of the situation: the minister is not responsible for the lord's death, the feudal lord brought about his own death and the ronin don't realise the real enemy is the Feudal system (and samurai codes) which forced the feudal lord to commit suicide and didn't give the lord a chance to explain his actions. They spend their time blaming a fake enemy and come across as pathetic characters squashed by an unfair system yet they are blind to this. Brilliant samurai films like "Harakiri" and "Samurai Rebellion" realise the evil and idiocy of the Samurai codes of honour. All Chushingura does is present false victory, idiotic loyalty and a twisted sense of honour.

The twisted themes of Chushingura are, loyalty (if your master dies you must die also, the feudal lord is responsible for his own actions, he brought about his own death, even though he didn't deserve it, but all the ronin must die for him) justice (blame a scapegoat for your problems and kill him, even though the minister was a nasty piece of work who deserved to be slashed, he was not responsible for the feudal lord's death) and finally honour (it matters what people think about you, losing "honour" is more important than life, : in one scene the feudal lord changes all his 100 mats because they're dirty, he is scared what people will think about him, and the lord's worker runs to a mat-maker shop and begs them to make 100 mats unless he'll kill himself, "our honor is at stake" and he nearly does kill himself). The only good features about this film are the beautiful music and artistic direction by Hiroshi Inagaki (whose better films are the "Samurai Trilogy") but these do not save a film that collapses under its own weight. Literally, with its long winded 3hrs 20 minute running time and its poor content which leaves the viewer angry at the samurai system and underwhelmed at the poor story.

So far, best story of the 47 samurais I know of. Awaiting for a XXIst century version, with the revisited question about the meaning of sacrifice, more than 300 years later.